Innova falls in Bhakra Main Line Canal near Patiala; rescue ops on

Patiala: One Toyota Innova vehicle fell into the Bhakra Main Line (BML) Canal near here on Patiala-Sangrur-Bathinda highway late evening on Wednesday. Till the filing of this report, the rescue operation was on as divers were trying to bring out the ill-fated persons out from the canal but due to night-time the operation was facing some kind of hampering because of no light arrangements.

As per the inputs available, the ill-fated vehicle fell into the canal around 7 pm and nobody knew about how many persons were there in the vehicle when it went down in the canal. But some of the witnesses claimed that they had seen one person talking on the mobile phone for a very long time and as he sat into the vehicle, the vehicle was driven down the canal, but it was not confirmed from any other quarter.

As the news of the vehicle falling into the canal reached the nearby Passiyana police station, the police immediately called the divers from the Bhollai Shanker Divers club to start the rescue operation. The divers led by club president Shankar Bhardwaj started the operation to extricate the vehicle out of the canal.

Sources added that the divers though confirmed approaching the vehicle and rest of the operation was on and it would take a lot of time because of it being night-time.

Source in the police plainly stated that so far nobody knew about the make of the vehicle and it will be only confirmed after the extrication of the vehicle from the canal and similarly it was also not confirmed how many persons were in the vehicle when it fell down in the canal.